Valse Triste (film)

Valse Triste is a 1977 5 minute experimental collage film by Bruce Connor [1] set to Jean Sibelius's piece of the same name.[2]

Summary

An autobiographical take of the filmmaker's childhood in 1940s Kansas with sources that parallels his own life experiences.[3]

Relation to Take the 5:10 to Dreamland (1976)

After finishing Take the 5:10 to Dreamland, Bruce Conner started working on this film, which he calls ‘an extension of Take the 5:10 to Dreamland’ . Although he didn’t have the same sound problems with this film, he decided to make it sepia-toned as well, so the two films go together as a pair. Some of the images of Take the 5:10 to Dreamland are re-used. The dream is present again; the first shot is a little boy going to sleep, the images that follow are his ‘dream’ about the past, full of trains, cars, factories, typical American suburbs and fences. Nature is almost absent here; we see images of men and industry, images in movement. The rhythm is quicker, and the sad but vividly waltz on the soundtrack give this film an entire other feel, less dreamlike and more specifically rooted in the nostalgic American past. [4][5]

Influences

The film a homage to surrealist cinema and the trance films of Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger and Sidney Peterson.[6]

The radio show I Love A Mystery (a program Bruce loved as a kid to the tune by Sibelius) also influenced Valse Triste.[7]

References
  1. 2002 B.C. : Eight 16 mm films by Bruce Conner: 1964-1981-WorldCat.org
  2. An Evening with Celluloid|College of Liberal & Creative Arts
  3. Online Screening: Bruce Conner-SFMOMA
  4. MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN 1987|Valse Triste-BRUCE CONNER
  6. A.L. Rees; Bruce Conner and the found-footage film; Monthly Film Bulletin, 1987
  7. A Symposium on Bruce Conner | MoMA LIVE
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